


Watermark

by jimothynorrington



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mermaids
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-04-27 23:04:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14436072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jimothynorrington/pseuds/jimothynorrington
Summary: "I won't let him die, not if I can give him another choice."Briony has been having the same nightmare for months: a good man is going to die, and she has to save him. She ventures out of her mermaid enclave in search of the British Naval vessel carrying the man from her vision. When she is captured by Lord Cutler Beckett's men and imprisoned on the HMS Endeavour, she is put under the watch of Admiral James Norrington. As the two form an uneasy friendship, Briony is hesitant to tell him that her vivid, recurrent premonition is about his violent death. Venturing onto the Flying Dutchman to negotiate with Davy Jones, she discovers the lengths she will go to save him, disrupting the natural order to give him another choice, all for a reason she is still trying to understand: she has fallen ardently in love with him.





	1. Saving James

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Norrington is saved by a mysterious mermaid.

_I was not privy to begging, not even for my own life; I was more daunted by weakness than death. And I most certainly had not seen this coming: even now, it throws into sharp relief that I had never thought of myself as something death could touch, though I saw plenty of it. Turning from the rising water, cold and briny; the agonizing twinge as a metal blade wedged itself between my ribs, kissed my heart to puncture my lungs; I fell to my knees with the salt of the sea still on my lips. Listening to the crest and whorl of that water, the hot tinny tang of blood between my teeth, the air going out of me in a whoosh, I found myself quite close to begging that night._

James Norrington, do you fear death?

_I did, but only in the sense that if I were to die now, the world would continue to spin on its axis; mine would no doubt come to an abrupt end, but the sun would rise in the morning, and by then I would be rotting away in the depths. Perhaps what I feared most was hope: that my world was not turning against me; that she could still come to love me; that this end (if it was indeed the end) would be quick, for the pain was quite great, and my body was hard-pressed to overcome it._

_At that moment, as I began to shed my deadweight body, something glinted in the moonlight. At first she was a ripple in the water lashing around the ship, but then she was suddenly there, hanging onto the edge of the deck: golden scales, tendrils and tendrils of wet dark hair, eyes the color of storm clouds._

You’re hurt. _She reached for me with webbed fingers, seawater seeping into the sleeve of my Royal Navy jacket._

 _I could only muster,_ Leave me. If they see you, they will kill you.

I can save you. _Her fingers brushed up against my cheek._

_I did not believe she loved me; I was merely something she could amuse herself with, just another human man. Would she take her time with me, waiting until we had both had our way with each other before sinking her cold, sharp teeth into my throat? Or would she see the lingering sorrow and mania in my eyes and make it quick?_

Please… _Now I was begging._

_My breaths were numbered; I could feel it was only a matter of seconds before the endless, shimmering dark swirled up to engulf me. Seeming to sense this, she took my face in her webbed, wet hands, pressed her soft, supple lips to mine, and pulled me down to the depths with her._

_The promise of redemption, indeed…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This idea has been in my head for a while. I hope you enjoyed!


	2. Fisherman's Netting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Norrington encounters a strange and beautiful woman.

_James Norrington has ninety days left to live._

I first saw her on the deck of the HMS _Endeavor_ , ensnared in a fisherman’s net; when the men saw me approach, they scattered, and I found myself staring into a pair of wide, steely grey eyes. She gripped the netting with small, delicate fingers, and I could see the scales sloughing off her body almost like snakeskin, knees emerging from the golden tail as it dissolved into a shimmering puddle; one arm she wrapped around her chest to protect her modesty, and she was breathing in terrified little gasps. As I stepped closer, she hissed at me, baring white, sharp teeth. The men had gathered around me, the younger boys peering out from behind me, and they watched in silence as I stepped still closer; she had curled into herself, hands wrapped around her knees, hissing up at me. 

I turned to the crew. “Back to your stations!” 

We had come upon this situation because of Lord Cutler Beckett’s greed, like so many of the predicaments I found myself falling upon in recent years. Evidently, the heart of Davy Jones did not suffice; he had to have the Fountain of Youth in his grasp, and in order to achieve immortality, water from the fountain had to mix with a mermaid’s tear. She just happened to be in an unfortunate plight: lost, wandered away from her enclave somehow, though we were a far distance from Whitecap Bay. Beckett had seen it only as a matter of convenience, and I did not have much time; it was only a matter of minutes before he would reappear on deck to sequester her away.

“Can you speak?” I kept my voice soft, lest the curious men overhear.

“Yes.” To my surprise, her voice was soft, almost melodic, a stark contrast to her bone-chilling hiss.

“Do you have a name?” It was growing dark, the first stars beginning to appear, the wind coming off the ocean in freezing coils. I wanted to cut her loose; she looked utterly terrified, her dark hair matted to her head, lips and chin shaking. If she stayed out here much longer, the exposure would kill her. 

“Ah, Admiral!” Beckett appeared from his cabin, Mr. Mercer (as always) at his side. Though Beckett was half my height, I loathed him enough to fill the Seven Seas. “I see you’ve met our newest passenger.” Tossing me a set of keys, he ordered, “Fetch her some decent clothes and put her in the brig.”

The white shirt and black breeches I brought to her were no doubt too big, far from proper attire, but I supposed they would have to do for the duration of our voyage. As I cut her out of the netting, she shrank away from me, and I couldn’t blame her; her fate from here on out looked quite bleak: after Beckett had drained her of tears, she would be left in a shallow pool to die in the oppressive heat. Trying my best to be gentle, as I would be with any lady, I draped the crisp white fabric around her shoulders, helped her to properly don it. 

“Can you stand?” I was well aware of Beckett watching us. She shook her head, and I dreaded the rumors he might spread at the sight of me with a strange woman, mermaid or not. Nevertheless, I knelt down beside her. “Put your arms around me.”

Glaring up at me with wide, defiant eyes, she hesitated; after a moment, she reached for me, tips of her fingers cold on the back of my neck, and I hoisted her up into my arms, cursing Beckett for making me do so. 

Once in her cell, she huddled in a corner, the white garment pulled over her knees, having refused the breeches. She looked young, no older than eighteen; despite her evident fear at the situation, her gray eyes were unwavering. She obviously hated being vulnerable, something she and I had in common. In the low light below deck, I saw she had a faint dusting of freckles over the arch of her nose, bruises lining her arms from where the men had gripped her and she had struggled. 

“Do you have a name?” I asked again, careful of the guard patrolling the brig. When she didn’t respond: “Do not try to hold out against Beckett and Mercer; they will break you.”

* * *

By morning, I had not slept at all, which was not so unusual; there had once been a time where I operated on a regimented sleep schedule. But I could not recall the last time I had slept through the night. I frequently found myself wandering the deck, able to count the constellations one by one and over again until the sun rose, shining gold through the billowing sails. Though last night, I had only paced my cabin, unable to draw my thoughts away from the girl in the brig: her naked fear, what Beckett would do with her come the mission’s end. At most, she only had half a year left to live, and Hell to look forward to. 

As soon as I emerged from below, I saw Beckett on the starboard side, in the black cloak he reserved for chilly weather. “Morning, Admiral!” he called over the wind. 

“Lord Beckett,” I said flatly. “Where is your confidante?”

“Mercer prefers to avoid rising early when he can.” Only Mercer, in his ruthless and cunning conscience-less state, could sleep soundly through the night, knowing what he did. “Your new station deserves a new assignment, Admiral.” Beckett gestured in the direction of the brig. “The sea ghoul, I want you to look after her. She’ll be in your charge.” And I had no choice but to obey him, though I did not have to enjoy doing so.

She was asleep on the floor of her cell, though fitfully, arm thrown over her eyes; she had done up the buttons on her shirt, and it was twisted around her, bunched up above her knees. With a start and a gasp, she awoke, gaze meeting mine, and I averted my eyes as she pulled her clothing over her legs again. Seeming to sense something, she hauled herself up and peered out of the small porthole, at the gray, heavy mist rolling behind us. And then she spoke.

“The Dutchman,” she murmured. 

Indeed, it was following in our wake, for whomever possessed the heart of Davy Jones held command over the seas, and Jones himself. “You know it?” 

“Everyone knows of the Dutchman.” She sank back down the floor, began worrying at the ends of her dark hair. Her voice had a French lilt to it, and I could easily understand why so many were instantly taken with her; I felt the strangest calm settle over me as she spoke. “If not for her captain’s music, I wouldn’t have slept.”

Sometime in the earliest hours, I remembered hearing the sound of Davy Jones’s organ, a haunting melody harmonizing through the fog; it had lulled me the closest to sleep I had been in weeks. Truthfully, I looked forward to those nights, my heart seeming to thrum with the heartbreak he poured forth into his songs; I knew grief—and what it had driven me to do—in my very skeleton. 

It was suddenly very clear why Beckett had asked me to watch over the girl: mermaids preyed on grief. I had always wondered if a man would ever willingly tread in their waters, perhaps if he were ruined or lost enough. I had always been fascinated with those sorts of tales. I grew up hearing stories of mermaids luring and devouring sailors, leaving nothing but the soul and bones, and I couldn’t think of a more heavenly way to die: to lose myself so completely in another person, even if it destroyed me in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So I have a better idea of where this might be going now. Yeet?


	3. An Aura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which she gets herself captured so she can save him.

_James Norrington has ninety days left to live._

A good man was going to die.

When it first came to me, the vision wasn’t clear: I saw only a blue smear; I could hear raised voices; could feel the water was cold and it was just before dawn. Most of all the slow, persistent ache of someone’s life force siphoning out of them; it started as a tug underneath my ribs and drew itself up into my lungs, a death rattle in my throat. I was quite familiar with this drain, for the energy of the universe and the people within it had become quite clear to me, especially after I left land. And so it was an aura that drew me out: a clean, rubbed-raw energy, a thrumming speck of light shimmering from somewhere out at sea.

They were after us again. We had been hiding from the humans for months because we caught wind of a British Naval ship; the first vision had come just before I heard the Endeavour was passing through these waters, and I began to swim after it instead of hiding from it. Whoever was in that vision was aboard that vessel, of that I was certain.

I swam for weeks before I caught up with the Endeavour; I came across it during a bout of doldrums, sitting out in the open sea, sails still, hot yellow sun bathing the deck in a golden light, and that’s when I saw him: he was pacing the starboard side, hands clasped behind his back, gilded uniform glinting in the sun. From the looks of his attire, he was a high-ranking officer, and I hated to think of what was in store for him: the death rattle gasp in the pre-dawn light, his last moments spent in searing agony. I couldn’t let him die, not if I could give him another chance.

I watched the ship for hours, until the sun dipped red and the stars appeared; my skin blistered where the sun had burnt it. He didn’t have to know. Some sailors are saved from drowning without ever knowing a mermaid pulled them from the shadowy depths. But he would know, I could feel it. Before he retired for the evening, I saw him turn and stare out at the water, striking green eyes trained on the horizon; he knew he was being watched. 

After he had gone below deck, the sailors began to sing, and I didn’t have a choice: something about voices harmonizing through the fog made my teeth wet, throat swelling with hunger. As I began to circle the ship, one of the younger sailors, eyes wide, roused from his perch in the crow’s nest.

“Quick!” he called. “Rouse the admiral! There’s something in the water!”

Everything happened very quickly then: there was a shout, someone barking orders, and then I was ensnared in a fisherman’s net and hauled up, hands grasping at my arms, around my neck, fingers in my hair, pulling until I hissed; one of the men gripped me so hard I felt the bones in my shoulder rattle. I hit the deck hard, fin and scales sloughing off of me in a golden puddle; I drew my knees up to my chest, my arms around myself. Where before there had been fish skin, a warm patch of hair nestled between my thighs; in a few weeks’ time I would start to bleed, and the thought of it was like a vice around my ribcage. 

There were footsteps, and in the dying light I saw the admiral emerge from the crowd, the men gathering around him; as he stepped closer I reflexively hissed at him. He turned to the sailors, and I could see the pulse below his chiseled jawline. 

“Back to your stations!” he barked. 

The men scattered at the sound of his voice; he had the sort of low voice that could be either calming or terrifying. He did not kneel down beside me or stare open-mouthed at me like some men did, nor did he reach for me. I kept my eyes on his, and I was certain that this was the man from my nightmare, though his aura was tainted by the drag-down of grief, a sadness that couldn’t be shaken. 

“Can you speak?” His voice was gentle now. 

I hesitated. “Yes.”

“Do you have a name?” He touched his long fingers to the sword at his hip, and I shrank back. The freezing air felt like teeth on my naked skin. Would he kill me before I could save him? 

“Ah! Admiral!” Two shorter men emerged from below deck, and in both I sensed rot, the sort of soul blackness that leaked into the bloodstream. The admiral turned, and I saw his jawline flex. “I see you’ve met our newest passenger.” The shortest man, half the admiral’s height, tossed him a set of keys. “Fetch her some decent clothes and put her in the brig.”

And then the admiral was walking away, and I felt the swell of panic; his presence was oddly soothing. The two men watched me with narrowed, fishy eyes; the short one ticked his lips up in a smirk that sent a chill up from the base of my spine. When the admiral reappeared, he tossed a pile of fabric in front of me and drew out his sword. I shrank further into the net as he advanced toward me, hooking the tip of the weapon into the net and cutting it open. He knelt down and draped something cool and dry over my shoulders, hands warm and slight as he helped me into a white shirt too big for me.

“Can you stand?” He was close enough that he was breathing on my wet hair, the edge of my ear. I shook my head; the muscles and bones in my legs had yet to fuse strong enough for me to walk. 

“Put your arms around me,” he said, and I glared up at him. My skin was still cold, and I didn’t want to touch him, but still I reached out for him, draping my arms around his shoulder, nape of his neck hot against my fingertips. 

With one swift movement, he scooped me up into his arms, arm hooked under my knees. His gaze lingered on me, and for a second I thought he was going to toss me overboard, but he brought me below, to the brig, where he set me down on the floor of a cell. 

“Do you have a name?” he asked again. I couldn’t bring myself to answer, airy exhaustion tugging me downward. “Do not try to hold out against Beckett and Mercer; they will break you.”

That night, when I lapsed into an uneasy slumber, the vision came to me in full: the admiral was run through with a blade; he stumbled backward a few paces before collapsing against the The Flying Dutchman’s grimy balcony. I could feel all of it in a pulsing echo: the blade as it pierced through his heart and lungs, the lurch-forward rush of blood, the frantic scramble for breath as he fell. I woke to the tang and salt of tears dribbling into my mouth. Somewhere nearby, I could hear someone was playing the organ, and the haunting melody lulled me back to sleep.  
\---  
He came back for me in the morning, and I had just enough time to pull the hem of my shirt over my knees before he was standing outside my cell with the same look in his green eyes. There was a darkness I couldn’t shake; it seemed to chuff through the walls of the ship, a deep-seated, shimmering dark every living sea creature was hardwired to flee: The Dutchman. It was tailing us; I peered through the tiny porthole and saw a misty shroud just off the Endeavour’s stern.

“The Dutchman,” I said. The heart of Davy Jones must be on this vessel somewhere; the thought if had an uneasiness curdling under my ribs. 

“You know it?” the admiral asked, and I noticed his brows furrowed a little as he spoke.

“Everyone knows of the Dutchman.” Not knowing what else to do, I started coiling my hair around my fingers; it had dried poorly, frizzing in the stagnant brig air. “If not for her captain’s music, I would not have slept.”

The admiral drew back then, as if I had hissed at him. The grief was running through him like blood, and I could feel its drag-down like a ball and chain around my ankle. Of what he was grieving I was unsure, but in that instant I could sense he was holding very tightly onto it, that it was a link to something, that his life had not always been like this.

“Surely you must have a name,” he said, and there was something in his eyes that drew me toward him. 

I wrapped my fingers around the cell bars, and he backed away. “I’m no one,” I said. Before he could inquire further, “Surely you must have a name, Admiral.” 

He averted his gaze, staring down at his buckle shoes. “Close affiliates call me James,” he said.

“I suppose I don’t fall under that category?” I quirked my head to the side.

He smirked a little. “You may address me as Admiral Norrington or Sir.”

“Norrington” meant “North;” perhaps it was there that he had fonder memories. Whatever it was, it had caused a slow-healing heartache, the sort of venomous sting that flowered into the coldest brand of sorrow, the first frost spreading over wet warm earth, steeling it so that it turns inwards for winter. I knew that kind of sorrow, of what it meant to feel displaced, snatched up from one life and summoned into another. 

“What pains you, Admiral?” I asked.

If he had heard me, he didn’t acknowledge it; from his jacket he pulled a set of keys. “Lord Beckett has ordered that I bring you to him. Do not make the mistake of an escape attempt; if you do so, you will find yourself back in the brig. You will be under my charge for the duration of the voyage. Do you understand?” I nodded, though I feared what Lord Beckett had in store for me, and for him.


End file.
